North Queensland wildlife and the environment
This blog has its own Facebook page, set up as an easy way of sharing news about conservation and climate change issues.
Soon after starting it, I began to include casual posts featuring animals which were special in some way – rescued baby animals, rare species turning up in new places, etc – under the heading of ‘cute critter’ (sorry, but I have a weakness for alliteration). They are reminders of why we do what we do, and often give us a lift by showing that we can indeed make a difference.
I don’t know much about Josh except that, judging by this meme which appeared on social media recently, his heart is in the right place. His meme encourages us not to blame humanity at large for the actions of some smaller part of the world’s population. He’s on the right track in saying that, but he doesn’t quite reach his destination. Let’s see if we can do better.
Last time I looked, the planet was still mooching along in its orbit. Continue reading “Dear climate activists”
Strand Ephemera is a biennial event so this year’s iteration, 17 – 25 July, was the first of the COVID era. (That’s actually a rather startling thought. Was life really that different two years ago? Yes, it was.) We will therefore forgive it for being a little smaller than the others, being so grateful that it happened at all.
The site, at least, hasn’t changed.
Beyond Climate Grief
Jonica Newby
NewSouth, 2021
Jonica Newby, best known as a presenter for the ABC’s science show Catalyst, fell into depression a few years ago when the fate of her beloved alpine landscape in a warming world suddenly hit home.
After a break to rebalance she decided to use her skills to “science the shit out of it” to work her way back towards normality. As she did so, she met many climate scientists who were struggling with the same grief at the inexorable loss of their own special places, and with psychologists who could explain how best to deal with the emotional burden.
She began writing in October 2019 and was soon forced by the horrific bushfires of that summer to expand her project to include managing immediate trauma. This book is the result. To be clear, it is not about climate change or climate science (Newby knows, and we know, enough about that already) but about how we can best cope with the ongoing and seemingly inevitable collapse of the natural world we love. Continue reading “Beyond Climate Grief”
What can we, as a family, do to reduce our carbon footprint and have a more ecologically sound lifestyle in general?
I know there are a lot of resources out there but I don’t have any particular expertise or the time to research everything, so I need a step-by-step or a handbook.
A related question – a lot of the difficulty is inertia. Any advice on how to get momentum turning away from the consumerist vortex of middle class American life (give me convenience or give me death) towards a more sustainable lifestyle?
This excellent question was posted to an online forum recently. It received some very good answers so I thought that I would treat it like a similar question on ethical investing a year ago and turn the discussion into a blog post.